Planning Opportunity: Lowndes County Thoroughfare Plan

Congratulations on the new
proposed amendments to the Comprehensive Plan and on the
process by which they were produced. Any public plan can be
improved by external input and public hearings, as changes
to the ULDC and to the Comprehensive Plan continue to
demonstrate. Planning for the entire county can reduce
mismatches of effort and promote development close in to
existing services while perserving neighborhoods,
agriculture, and wildlife.

The county lets contracts for
road work based on the Thoroughfare Plan, and as the county
says, once a road is paved or widened, it can support denser
use. Some of this road work is in areas
which the
Comprehensive Plan shows as for agricultural and forestry,
not development, so there appears to be a conflict here
between the two plans, and thus an opportunity for the
Planning Commission to resolve any such conflicts.

The recent update to the
Thoroughfare Plan reclassifies numerous county roads to
support more traffic and thus more development. While that
plan includes tables of criteria for road classifications,
it says up front that roads may not meet the criteria, and
in many cases they do not, so it is not clear for what
purpose roads are being reclassified. This is another
opportunity for improvement by the Planning Commission.

It is not clear whether the
County’s Thoroughfare Plan meshes with
Valdosta’s Transportation Plan, or with those of other
municipalities in the county. The Planning Commission is
well-placed to determine that, and to resolve any mismatches.

In general, while there is
little if any process in place for input to the
County’s Thoroughfare Plan, the Planning Commission
has well-tested processes for input that can be applied, to
everyone’s benefit.

Thank you for letting me bring
this planning opportunity to your attention.